Zac/Strategy
Champion Spotlight By David 'Phreak' Turley Champion Spotlight: Zac, the Secret Weapon Learn to punish your opponents with an elastic beatdown in this episode of the Champion Spotlight, where we showcase high-speed jungle potential. Zac quickly tears through monster camps using a combination of mechanics and potent area damage. With a little setup, Zac also has some of the longest range potential to date, enabling a variety of particularly devious ganks. Add in a powerful AoE and you've got one boisterous blob that's ready to lead the charge on the Fields of Justice. Find out more about this amorphous combatant with tips, tricks, sample mastery builds, and more in the Zac Champion Spotlight. Recommended Items Tips ;Playing As * ;Playing Against * Tricks ;Ability Usage * Although all of abilities cost a percentage of his current health, the cost is always compensated by picking up the blobs from . ** In fact, because bloblets recover a percentage of health, picking up bloblets has a net healing effect which is increased at low health. Therefore, do not be afraid to spam your skills provided you can safely collect the bloblets. ** However, do not overextend to collect a bloblet if doing so will expose you to crowd control, or more damage than you would heal. * allows to survive many situations that other champions could not. ** For example, getting hit by at low health is fatal to many champions, but so long as can reach safety, he will be able to 'respawn' with half of his maximum health. ** This also includes tower diving. At maximum range of the turret, at least two of blobs will land out of range, allowing him to survive and come back with over a quarter of his maximum health. * is a powerful slowing ability with a deceptively long range. Use this ability to lock down targets when pursuing or escaping. ** This skill can be cast backwards (opposite to the direction is facing) without turning around. This makes it easy to use as an escape skill. * is a great AoE damage ability. Its percent damage makes it perfect for clearing jungle camps and gives strong sustained damage against enemy champions. * Spamming is a massive source of AoE damage in teamfights since it has a low cooldown and the percent damage is effective against champions. * The percent damage on actually makes it a worse skill for farming minions in lane and killing small jungle creeps because of their low maximum health. * can jump over walls with , allowing him to avoid warded areas. Therefore, this skill is invaluable both in setting up and performing ganks. * When initiating using , be sure to jump towards the back of the enemy team in an attempt to hit and focus the AD/AP carry. * The combination of and is an amazing initiation tool, which can easily stack a teamfight in your favor from the beginning. ** When using , try to hit each member of the enemy team at least once to maximize the damage and number of knock-ups that the ability can achieve. * Although you cannot use or during , you can use . Take advantage of this to maximize damage output. ** Even when building very tanky, Zac has surprising damage output in teamfights. The enemy team will either be forced to focus you (allowing your ADC and APC to wreak havoc) or else take lots of damage from abilities. * Using will result in the dropping of four blobs from , which you can pick up for a whopping amount of your maximum health (even more with ) ** This makes a deceptively tanky initiator. You will likely lose a lot of health during , but you can gain most of it back so long as your resistances are high. As such, effectively has two build paths: full tank and AP bruiser. * Since count as minions, allies can to them to give Zac a brief period of invulnerability while reviving. ;Runes Usage * ;Item Usage * As a tanky initiator, should purchase items that offer survivability. CDR is also extremely important since he is manaless and reliant on cooldowns for engage or peel. AP and Magic Penetration can also be considered if ahead or if his team needs more damage as Zac's AP ratios and base damage are quite high. * is a strong item on for a tank build, since it provides health, armor, and useful active and passive effects. * adds increased sustain, health, cooldown reduction, magic resistance, and no mana-related stats, making it perfect for . * For boots, your decision should be between , , or . However, should only be used if you need to be getting back to lane very quickly, or if you're jungling and need more mobility. * should be taken to provide tons of health as well as very strong health regeneration effect. It is especially effective when combined with . It also gives CDR which is a bit hard to come by as most tank items that give the stat also give mana which is useless on . * can be useful because of percent health boost and area damage. ** is amazing, since it gives AoE damage, health, and armor, which all tanks need in order to be effective. *** Be careful when using and together, as the passives do not stack. * is really effective on all tanks, since it gives health and magic resist, as well as an active that allows you to shield your entire team, making your strong initiation skills even stronger. * A is a good item to rush on . Since the item synergizes well with he is granted a 'second life', which makes incredibly difficult to kill and adds extra turret diving capacity. ** revive passive takes higher priority over , which makes a worthwhile item. * is a core item for a bruiser build. The slow, health, and AP all work perfectly with damaging style, plus this item functions well in combination with or . ** works well even for a tank build because it provides a lot of health and gives utility and bonus damage. However, it should be noted that the passive only really works with his as all his other abilities already have CC. * is a good defensive item, offering health, MR, CDR and a passive that reduces enemy MR. The passive is especially effective as abilities have high base damage and have ranges that work with the aura. * For boots, you should use , , or . The decision is based on whether you want survivability, cooldown reduction, or magic penetration. * is not recommended, but can be used if more damage is necessary. ** Consider substituting it with a for more survivability. * is a viable purchase because of the survivability it provides as well as the AP and CDR, not to mention the stasis active. * offers ability power and movement speed, making it a very efficient source of damage and mobility for despite wasting the mana restoration. * is basically a must on him, since he is so heavily based on health and that penetration will make his percent damage on even more potent. This is a particularly effective pick in combination with . ** Since penetration works so well in combination with , is also a viable pick. * Try not to waste gold on items with mana or mana regeneration components, as these are wasted on . * Any slots not taken up by AP items should be slotted to increasing survivability, since needs to be so close to enemies to effectively deal damage. * is highly effective on him, and it is recommended that you pick it up regardless of build path, unless there are no champions on the enemy team that do significant magic damage. It is extremely strong because passive gives more effective healing due to the healing from being partially negated by the health cost of his abilities. E.g. you're at 50% HP, you cast an ability which puts you to 48%, and then you pick up a blob which heals to up to % (rather than 52% without the which is an effective healing increase of 40%). ;Countering * heals from the blobs that separate from him. You can crush them by stepping on them. * Kill all of bloblets when he splits apart to prevent him from reforming. ** You can use and on the bloblets. * Silences, roots, stuns and knock ups will all interrupt the charging of . * All forms of crowd control are especially effective against , since without mobility to allow him to collect his healing blobs from he will, therefore, chop down his own health. * Building a or against can be extremely effective, since it significantly reduces his healing. * needs to be very close to you in order to deal the majority of his damage, which makes kiting a very viable strategy. * has a very long cooldown. Popping this before a teamfight or other major engagement can cripple his effectiveness. ** Be sure to keep an eye on when this is available, as it will allow you to more accurately determine whether you can win a 1v1 with him. Click before a teamfight to see if his passive is active. * Even though they take reduced AoE damage, you can still easily destroy all of bloblets by using a mage with a lot of AoE damage. Champions such as , and can easily kill while is activated. ** It may be helpful to wait to use AoE abilities against until the blob chunks have come close enough together that all can be targeted at once. * Champions like , , , and can throw away when he uses , by using their own ultimate abilities. ** Alternatively, champions with knock up CC available like or can keep from moving around a teamfight if used after activated . This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the ability. * deals only magic damage with his abilities. As such, you can buy magic resistance to counter his damage. References Category:Champion strategies Category:Zac de:Zac/Strategie